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Iran War Updates: Trump's U.N. ambassador says war could last another year as oil prices continue rising
What to know about the Iran war today:
- Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton warned Friday that Iran has "substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel" abroad, with plots to kill Americans reaching "advanced stages" in the Middle East and other countries.
- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz has told the Financial Times the war with Iran could last another year, but Waltz said he hopes the Iranians "come to the table" before that.
- The price of Brent crude oil briefly crossed $117 a barrel Friday, its highest level during the war, after Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed to have disabled seven tankers near the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump accused Iran Thursday of lying about attacks on ships to drive up oil prices before the U.S. midterm elections.
Iran has "increased efforts to target U.S. personnel," intel chief warns
Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton warned Friday that Iran has "substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel" abroad, with plots to kill Americans reaching "advanced stages" in the Middle East and other countries.
The warning, contained in an unclassified memo that was sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obtained by CBS News, comes as the State Department adjusts staffing at diplomatic posts across the Middle East, and the U.S. military pares back its footprint in the region, amid concerns about direct threats from Iran and threats from the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen.
"The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries," Clayton wrote.
The memo, which was issued as the Trump administration weighs resuming military strikes against Iran, does not identify specific targets or countries where the alleged plots are underway, or indicate whether attacks may be imminent.
Clayton said the U.S. intelligence community is working to downgrade sensitive intelligence — received through various channels — so it can be shared more broadly with State Department personnel. CIA Director John Ratcliffe was copied on the memo.
U.S. to reduce staffing at 4 embassies in Middle East
The U.S. State Department says it will reduce staffing at four U.S. embassies in the Middle East, not including Saudi Arabia, where nonessential diplomats and family members were ordered to leave earlier this week.
The staffing changes — driven by concerns that Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militants may escalate rocket, missile and drone attacks around the region — will affect the embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, but do not entail an order to leave, the department said.
The embassies involved are all under what is known as "restricted operations" status that has already reduced the size of their personnel footprints. The embassies will remain open.
On Wednesday, a U.S. official and a senior U.S. military official told CBS News that the U.S. military had been quietly reducing its footprint at posts in the Middle East due to ongoing regional threats from the Houthis and direct threats from Iran.
CBS/AP
Iranian president to meet with Putin next week in Moscow
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will travel to Moscow next week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, according to a report by Reuters.
It hasn't been long since Pezeshkian spoke to Putin in person, but this will be the first meeting between the two in Russia during the ongoing war.
The two leaders met with each other on the sidelines of the Caspian Environmental Summit in Turkmenistan on Oct. 8. The two also met at a summit in Kyrgyzstan in September.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Tehran earlier this week as the two sides continue to strengthen relations. Araghchi said Russia and Iran were closer than ever, despite President Trump saying Russia was doing little to help Iran a day prior.
U.N. sounds alarm on besieged Yemen city of Taiz
Time is running out to get aid into Taiz, besieged by pro-Iran Houthi fighters who are preventing supplies from reaching Yemen's third-largest city, the United Nations said Friday.
Houthi fighters have encircled Taiz since early October, blocking the road that links it to Aden, interim capital of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government.
"Safe, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access is urgently needed so that essential supplies and life-saving assistance can reach people in need," said the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA.
"It's 20 days and counting since Taiz has been cut off," said OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke.
"We are seeing increasingly that the fighting makes it impossible for us to get in and impossible for people to get out," he told a press conference in Geneva.
Laerke said the dwindling water supply was a growing concern, as most residents depended on water brought in by trucks.
"With the roads closed and the diesel to run the trucks very scarce, water production in the city has fallen by about half," he said.
U.S. envoy leaves open possibility of striking Iran this weekend, despite Trump's prior midterm promise
A U.S. official left open the door for the possibility of a strike on Iran this weekend, despite President Trump previously saying there would be none before the midterm elections in less than two weeks.
"Could there be a strike this weekend? Absolutely," Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and point man on Syria, who does not have a direct role on Iran policy, told Israeli army radio in response to a question.
"(President Trump) is very clear. He's open and available and accessible to a deal and we've been at the table for months and months and months," Barrack said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections Tuesday, in recent days has repeatedly vowed to topple the clerical state in Iran, following two major bombing campaigns against Iran since last year.
Mr. Trump has also signaled an openness to resuming strikes on Iran after a long deadlock in diplomacy although he earlier said it would not happen before midterm elections on Nov. 3.
Earlier Friday, Mr. Trump repeated a common refrain that the U.S. could choose to end the war anytime it wants through a renewed military campaign, but could also let the country "wither" under sanctions.
AFP/CBS
European, Mideast foreign ministers push peace and diplomacy at Istanbul talks
Foreign ministers from eight European and Middle Eastern countries met in Istanbul on Friday in an unprecedented format, urging diplomacy and peaceful solutions to prevail across the Middle East as well as the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy met counterparts from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt to discuss Hormuz — a crucial trade route blocked in the Iran war — as well as Yemen and ways to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
At the heart of the talks was the situation in the Straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, which is paralyzing global trade and driving up energy prices as well as the attacks on Saudi Arabia by Houthis from Yemen, allies of Tehran.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said a new escalation between Iran and the United States "would create nothing but losers and would undoubtedly have very serious consequences for hydrocarbon prices."
"The first thing this group of eight countries ... will do is call on both sides to exercise the utmost restraint, because we cannot afford another escalation in the region," he told journalists.
Italy's Antonio Tajani said the regional problem cannot be solved "from a purely military standpoint."
Wall Street mostly loses ground under pressure from rising oil prices
Stocks slipped Friday on Wall Street under increasing pressure from rising oil prices.
The S&P 500 fell 0.2%, adding to its decline from a day before. The index is on track for a second-straight week of losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 550 points, or just over 1%, as of 11:50 a.m. Eastern time.
The Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%, bolstered by gains for several big tech stocks that also helped ease losses elsewhere.
Rising oil prices weighed heavily on the broader market, where three out of every four stocks within the benchmark S&P 500 index fell. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil rose 3.5% to over $117. It has surged from less than $97 at the start of October and is now at its highest level since March.
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